Dr Yaniv Erlich

Israel

Dr. Yaniv Erlich, nicknamed the Genome Hacker by Nature journal, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Computational Biology at Columbia University and as a Core Member at the New York Genome Center. He is also the former principal investigator and a Whitehead Fellow at MIT’s Whitehead Institute, founder of DNA.LAND and the principal investigator of the Erlich DNA lab. He completed his Ph.D. at the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2010, and has won numerous awards as a cutting-edge scientist, including the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award (2013), the Harold M. Weintraub Award (2010) and the IEEE/ACM-CS High Performance Computing Award (2008). Dr. Erlich has a B.Sc. degree cum laude in Neuroscience from Tel Aviv University. Dr. Erlich’s research interests are diverse and cover many facets of computational human genetics, including population studies, DNA privacy, DNA storage and genetic research in crowd-sourced family trees.

rose feldman

Israel

Rose Feldman known on twitter as jewdatagengirl, operates two twitters for IGRA – Israelgenealogy and IGRA_Hebrew and IGRA’s Facebook page, Rose is in charge of developing new databases for Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). She has lectured at eight IAJGS conferences starting in 2003, at various annual seminars of the Israel Genealogical Society, branch meetings of IGRA and IGS, at the Israeli Association for Archives and Information workshop, and the last two years at the genealogy workshop of the Central Zionist Archives. She is one of the three coordinators of the Montefiore Censuses Project and has four Kehilalinks sites on JewishGen.

Caroline Gurney

England

Caroline is a professional genealogist, historical researcher and speaker. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Society of Genealogists and an Associate Member of the Regional History Centre at the University of the West of England. She has clients worldwide, including the BBC, Wall to Wall, HSBC and Baptist Heritage Queensland.

A former British diplomat and Director at the National School of Government, Caroline has a 1st class honours degree in History and nearly 30 years’ experience in historical research. She developed her research skills studying original documents in many different archives and is also expert in internet research. She is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Family and Local History at the University of Dundee.

In 2012 Caroline was commissioned by HSBC, corporate sponsors of the Cutty Sark, to trace living descendants of the crew. She identified over 600 people, 170 of whom attended a reception to mark the ship’s reopening by the Queen. She is now writing a book about the crew, many of whom had Australian connections. In 2013 Caroline researched and participated in a BBC documentary about the Cutty Sark, which was broadcast in the series Clydebuilt: the Ships That Made the Commonwealth. In 2014 Caroline worked with independent TV company Wall to Wall on the documentary series Secrets From the Clink. She appeared in the program sharing her research with comedian Johnny Vegas.

Caroline gives talks on a wide range of genealogical and historical topics. She was a speaker on the 8th Unlock the Past cruise to the Baltic in 2015. She also demonstrates genealogy software. She provided the source citation templates and sample project for the UK edition of The Master Genealogist and was Assistant Webmaster for the Society of Genealogists.

Caroline is a widow with two children, two grandchildren and a cat. She lives beside the sea in Portishead, North Somerset.

DANiel horowitz

Israel

Daniel Horowitz is the Genealogy Expert at MyHeritage, providing key contributions in the areas of product development, customer support, and public affairs, liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers and media, lecturing, and attending conferences around the world. Daniel headed the company’s translation department for 8 years, where he was instrumental in increasing MyHeritage global support to 42 languages.

Dedicated to Genealogy for over 30 years, he was the teacher and the study guide editor for 15 years, of the family history project “Searching for My Roots” in Venezuela. Currently he coordinates multiple crowdsourcing transcription projects and he holds board level positions with the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) among others.

DANiel lipson

Israel

Daniel Lipson is the reference and digital resource librarian at the National Library of Israel where he has worked for 5 years. he assists patrons with their research and instructs them how to use our online databases and digital collections. Previously he was a reference librarian at Achva Academic Collage. He has an MA in information science and librarianship from Bar Ilan university and BA in Land of Israel Studies. He was born in London but grew up in Petach Tikva, Israel. Today he lives in Bet Shemesh. He lecture at the annual Teldan conference about library technologies and initiatives.

garri regev

Israel

Garri Regev has lived in Israel since 1978 and was an elementary teacher for more than 20 years there. Garri has been doing genealogical research for over 20 years. She has lectured in genealogy to many adult groups including Hadassah, Touro College, the Central Zionist Archives, EVA/MINERVA and IAJGS Conferences. Garri currently volunteers at the Israel Museum, at the CZA and the NLI Genealogy Center. She was President of the Israel Genealogical Society and of the Israel Genealogy Research Association. She was the Vice-Chair of the 2015 IAJGS Conference in Jerusalem and co-chair of program. Currently Garri is a Board Member of the LitvakSIG, the primary internet resource for Lithuanian-Jewish (Litvak) genealogy research worldwide Special Interest Group.

judy rusSell

United States

The Legal Genealogist, Judy G. Russell is a genealogist with a law degree. She writes, teaches and lectures on a wide variety of genealogical topics, ranging from using court records in family history to understanding DNA testing. A native of the American west with roots deep in the American south on her mother’s side and entirely in Germany on her father’s side, she is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the National Genealogical Society (U.S.) and numerous state and regional genealogical societies. She has attended numerous genealogy training programs including the National Institute on Genealogical Research (NIGR) at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C., and was a Walter Lee Sheppard Jr. prizewinner in Advanced Methodology and Evidence Analysis at the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University in Alabama.

Now on the faculty of IGHR as well as the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) and the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP), she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), from which she holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist℠ and Certified Genealogical Lecturer℠. She has written for the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the National Genealogical Society Magazine and BCG’s OnBoard newsletter.

Her blog – chosen as one of the American Bar Association’s top 100 in 2013 – appears at The Legal Genealogist website

Judy was a speaker on the 10th Unlock the Past cruise from Auckland to Fremantle in in 2016.

John Scott Davenport (Judy G. Russell, editor), The Pamunkey Davenport Papers: The Saga of the Virginia Davenports Who Had Their Beginnings in or near Pamunkey Neck, CD-ROM (Charles Town, West Virginia : Pamunkey Davenport Family Association, 2009).

numerous articles, blog posts and more

jessica taylor

United States

Jessica M. Taylor has served as president of genealogy research firm, Legacy Tree Genealogists, since 2004. Jessica loves contributing to the genealogy community and pushing the industry forward to better help others discover their roots. As a Family History – Genealogy graduate from Brigham Young University and former Family History Library staff in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jessica knows the ins and outs of genealogy research and client needs. She also brings an international view to the genealogy industry, having resided in Asia and South America and having served genealogy clients from all over the globe.